The Acrimony of Strangers

It there anything less pleasant than sanctimonious bipedals?

When Shannon de Rubens, a stay-at-home mom, wears her Hillary Rodham Clinton button, she expects to be harassed. A woman in Bellevue even pretended to spit on her once. That's all part of the game, when you're a Clinton backer in a land of Obama bumper stickers. "I hate to say it, but that sort of acrimony between strangers has been standard in this campaign, especially locally," said de Rubens, who lives in Issaquah and co-founded two grass-roots campaign groups, the Hillraisers, in the region with more than 100 members total.

"They'll call (Clinton)her a bitch. Or say she's evil incarnate. They come up with these horrible names that you just don't hear men getting called," he said. "With Hillary, everything's personal." Shaun Shaffer, 29, a Web developer from White Center, said Seattle Democrats have accused him of being a racist for not supporting Obama. "In this campaign, you couldn't just be for or against a candidate," he said.